 Bobbi S. Tomes |
All you need to start your studio... Light kits I have yet to own any photo lights at all and one reason I only do word of mouth work right now is that I wont advertise till I get what I need. I am on the thun for affordable lights for a small studio room. I was hoping to keep it under 600.00. I have been looking on ebay and almost every kit from 250.00 to 2,000 hav the same sales pitch. "all you need to start your studio...easy to opperate...compatable with digital and film cameras..." That sort of stuff. I want lights to eliminate shadows and also I am hoping I will help eliminate this grainy look I get on indoor pics if there is no good window light. I is a small room. I dont want to over do it, I dont want to end up with trash either. I dont use my camera flash, I hate the look it gives. I really think studio lights will be my savior but the more I look, the more confused I am!
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Debby A. Tabb |
Bobbi, this is a post I will be posting on the thread "Studio Photography..." I do hope it helps you as well: Good Afternoon,
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Mark Feldstein |
Greetings Bobbi: First, I wouldn't let your lighting budget dictate your advertising. If you happen to land an assignment that requires more lighting than you have, you can always rent lights and build the cost into your fee. Buying your own lights, I think, is a combination of a lot of things from personal preference, budget, present vs. planned future needs, accessories available, where you intend to use them, how much you intend to use them and what formats you're shooting with now vs. what you will be shooting with later. You may be shooting 35mm now but in a studio, you'll probably grow into medium and likely large format. The bigger your format usually, the more horse power, in terms of watt-seconds, you'll need for lighting. Debby offered a good response but in terms of specifics, if you're shooting portraits indoors with mostly studio lighting rather than available window light, you should have at least one light that provides at least 800 w/s that can be ratio'd down to 500 and 250, even 125 w/s. Why? Flexibility. Remember than when you attach a light modifier like an umbrella or soft box to a studio light that by itself has a maximum output of 500 w/s, you're going to cut the output by about half with your modifier. You also need lights that will work together and can be adjusted for main and fill lighting, with and without modifiers, and ideally they should have built-in or accessory slaves to sync off each other. This helps eliminate tripping all over cords strung from lights to a pack. Monolights are a good choice for studio work and my own preference is Bowens (not the Calumet knock-offs). If you plan to work on location, you need portable lighting that will work on rechargable batteries. My preference for a hard-wired pack type system is Speedotron or Norman studio lighting. These are powerful, professional grade lights that will deliver 1000w/s per head at full power. If you can't afford new lights, you can get some excellent used equipment but unless you really know lighting equipment, avoid buying them off e-bay. The brands Debby mentioned are ok, but while I'm sure some will disagree with me, I wouldn't use a Britek light to shoot a job. They're not powerful enough and they're not built to withstand day-in day-out professional use. You also need to think about the cost of accessorizing your lights with things like umbrellas and softboxes and the hardware those things require like adapter rings for the boxes. I know at this stage of your endeavors you may not be thinking one, two or even three years down the road, but it helps if you do. Buying a system that you can build on will ultimately save you money in the future especially if the accessories are interchangable like reflectors, softboxes, rings, barn doors, scrims, gobos, etc. Finally, remember two things: First, that you get what you pay for. Second, that in terms of your reputation and word of mouth marketing, you're only as good as the last job you shot. Consider what your rep is going to be if your lighting equipment goes kaputsky in the middle of a shoot because it wasn't heavy duty enough or the batteries kept needing replacement or it took forever to recharge between frames. If you want to know where to look for good used studio lighting or where to rent, drop me an e-mail, let me know what city you're in and I'll try and point you in a direction or two to take a look in. Meanwhile, good luck !
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